Instead of taking it in by the mouth, the camels of these Saaran rovers were compelled to quench their thirst through the nostrils!
You will wonder in what manner this could be effected, inquiring whether the quadrupeds voluntarily performed this nasal imbibing?
Our adventurers, witnesses of the fact, wondered also—while struck with its quaint peculiarity.
There is a proverb that “one man may take a horse to the water, but twenty cannot compel him to drink.” Though this proverb may hold good of an English horse, it has no significance when applied to an African dromedary. Proof: our adventurers saw the owner of each camel bring his animal to the edge of the pool; but instead of permitting the thirsty creature to step in and drink for itself, its head was held aloft; a wooden funnel was filled, the narrow end inserted into the nostril, and by the respiratory canal the water introduced to the throat and stomach.
You may ask, why this selection of the nostrils, instead of the mouth? Our adventurers so interrogated one another. It was only after becoming better acquainted with the customs of the Saara, that they acquired a satisfactory explanation of one they had frequent occasion to observe.
Though ordinarily of the most docile disposition, and in most of its movements the most tranquil of creatures, the dromedary, when drinking from a vessel, has the habit of repeatedly shaking its head, and spilling large quantities of the water placed before it. Where water is scarce, and, as in the Saara, considered the most momentous matter of life, a waste of it after such fashion could not be tolerated. To prevent it, therefore, the camel-owner has contrived that this animal, so essential to his own safe existence, should drink through the orifices intended by nature for its respiration.